A Scandal in 221b
by Robespierre-vs.-Napoleon
Summary: In which a French girl moves into 222 Baker Street after being rescued by John and Sherlock during a case. Her new neighbor, Sherlock, nearly drives her up the wall, and they get into a fight and something that both of them will regret occurs. Are they friends? Wait, what are they? Even they don't know. Wait, what if John knows? What if he's jealous? Oh God. No, please, no.


_I'm a good girl. I'm a good girl. I don't deserve this. I want to go home. I want to see my boyfriend. I want to see my brother. I hate this. Ow, that hurt!_

Those were some of the thoughts going through the shaky woman's head as she glanced around Hush Showgirls, a shady strip club in downtown London. The floor, patterned in a red-and-black tile similar to that which one might find in a public restroom or public swimming pool, was littered with broken glass, strange liquids that smelled strongly of sweat and alcohol, the occasional paper money, and even a few articles of clothing. The walls were an obnoxious shade of red that made the poor woman want to get sick, like some stranger in the corner was currently doing, and they reflected the light of the large disco ball and small strobe lights that were scattered across the room. Although she spoke English very well-along with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, Chinese, and her native tongue, French, though that hardly mattered-her head struggled to understand the foreign words being tossed across the room as she comprehended her situation.

She thought about her cozy house in the swanky Latin Quarter back in Paris, all made of bricks and black iron and flowers in the windowsill boxes, full of happy memories and a few bad ones that she banished into the back of her mind to keep her sanity in check. She thought about her big brother, Jean, only two years older than her, who had had to raise her since she was only six and their parents disappeared mysteriously, nothing ever turning up about them except their car, a single bloody handprint on the window. He would surely be missing her. She thought about her boyfriend, only an hour older than her, who she'd been dating since their second year of high school, and had a wonderful mop of long brown hair that she loved to run her fingers through when they were cuddling on the sofa together. He loved her, he'd said so, and he surely missed her more than anyone else. After all, not having your loved one come home, calling the police, and then finding out that they were nowhere to be found was certainly a worrying thing.

Yes, indeed, she'd been kidnapped by a criminal organization centered in Paris known as La Vendetta Noir, the Black Vendetta, on her way home from her job at the hospital. She could remember the sudden jolt of adrenaline that had jolted through her when she'd realized what was happening as she tried to fight against the swarm of muscled, tattooed, masked men that grabbed her car keys away from her and knocked her out with a single blow to the head. She'd woken up, dazed and confused, in a suitcase that was on a jetliner destined for a London airport. Mercifully, there had been holes in the top of the case that allowed her to breathe on the short flight across the English Channel. It had later been revealed to her only a few hours prior to the start of our story that she was, to be quite frank, sold as a prostitute.

Now, Geneviève Gardinier, a 28-year-old graduate of the Sorbonne, was about to be raped.

She heard that the one man had said that she would cost £100, to whomever had the money for her. So that was what her virginity was worth, she thought, more tears speckling the corners of her eyes. Geneviève wondered what sick, disturbed man (or woman, who knew in a place like this) would spend the money for a week's worth of groceries for a family of maybe three or four on her, just to have sex with her.

Of course, said sick, disturbed men (yes, men, not man, as in singular, two of them, actually) were standing across the room, glancing over at her and the three men who kept firm guard around her barely clothed body on occasion. The one was of an average-ish height, with hair that looked either to be a tawny, dusty shade of brown/blond or gray (who knew in the dim light setting) and eyes that looked blue or black from the distance between them. She guessed that he was maybe in his 40s, but she assumed that he was probably younger than he looked, as, in her opinion, the worried look and frown lines on his face, probably from a tragic event in his past life, had aged him considerably. The other, the man's friend, was quite tall, and wore a black shirt, slacks, and shoes, that coupled together with his black curls that made her wonder what kind of a person he was to wear all black against that oddly pale skin of his. He seemed almost like an apparition that they so often told legends and scary stories about, looking almost ethereal. His sharp cheekbones were surprising, as were his blue-green eyes that were staring into hers at that moment, making her shiver. He just seemed to know, know everything about her in an instant, and it was quite unsettling...

Wait, he was looking RIGHT AT HER. Geneviève shook her head to bring herself back to reality and stared down at the floor, feeling a slight blush on her face. Her head snapped up quicker than a whip not a moment later when she heard her captors and the two strangers talking, and saw the one in all black handing the man with his muscular arm around her arm a stack of money that was certainly more than the £100 that had been demanded earlier. It didn't occur in her panicked mind that the bills were fake, as they would later turn out to be.

"Non, laissez-moi aller..." she muttered weakly as the shorter companion took her hand, not caring that she was speaking in her mother tongue and stood out like a sore thumb now. "Je ne veux pas que vous..."

"Tais-toi, connasse!" the captor who had taken the bills ordered in her ear, loud enough that only the two of them could hear. "Ne pas la peine d'essayer de s'échapper. Nous allons vous tuer si vous le faites."

So there was no escape...

The whole world seemed to mash together in a swirl of colours and lights, making her want to get sick on top of the headache that she already had. She followed the men who were basically dragging her blindly, not caring what they did now. Hopefully, she prayed, they would kill her afterwards. Maybe, if God looked down on her with favour, they would simply kill her before they touched her. But maybe they were into necrophilia, and, why...

Geneviève, despite her prayers for death, would still not go down without a fight. At least, she reasoned, if there is even the most remote chances of escaping, she could try to get away. She swung at the shorter one, the one with the near-gray looking hair, but the man in black caught her fist.

"Calm down, that's not what we're here for," the one she'd tried to punch said without a trace of fear, as if he had seen this before and did it a million times a day. Oh, yes, I pick up random girls in the strip club and blow a bunch of cash on them and then refuse to have sex with them, she imagined him saying over tea to his friends. It's quite fantastic. "Sherlock, it's her."

"I knew that, John," the one with her fist in his hand said casually, sounding quite pompous to her ears.

"Que voulez-vous dire?" she mumbled, looking and feeling like she was about to faint. The one apparently named "John" handed her the coat that he had on, and only then did she recall her near-nakedness in the lingerie that she found to be quite distasteful. She hastened to wrap it around herself, feeling less exposed. "Vous venez de me acheté..."

"What is she saying, John?" Sherlock asked. "No, never mind. Judging by her demeanor, we can deduce that she is asking 'Why.'"

"Sherlock, honestly, you can speak some French," John insisted.

"No, John, my French vocabulary consists entirely of 'I don't speak French!' French is such a trivial thing, I deleted it from my mind palace long ago."

"Forgive him," John said to Geneviève, patting her shoulder apologetically, making her jerk away from him and hold her hand to her chest as if she were on fire. "He sometimes forgets that people actually have FEELINGS. Isn't that right, Sherlock?"

"What do you mean, John?"

"See what I mean? Ah. Anyways, Geneviève-"

"You know my name?" she asked stupidly, her brain clear enough to form proper sentences in English.

"I knew this one was daft," Sherlock piped in.

"Sherlock!" John scolded. "I hate to have to apologize for him AGAIN, but I do. I'm terribly sorry. What I was going to say is that we're here to bring you home."

"What? What do you mean?" she questioned, stamping down the hope that rose in her heart so that she wouldn't be disappointed if it turned out that they were lying rapists.

"See what I mean, John?" Sherlock sighed. "We don't have time for her stupidity."

"Sherlock, I swear to God, if you don't SHUT UP and let me talk..." John cleared his throat. "We received notification that La Vendetta Noir members were seen around London and we've been assigned to find you. We had to go undercover, mind you, and we're lucky we found you before they did anything to you."

"I don't trust you..." she whispered, backing away towards the door and grasping for purchase against the smooth oak.

"Would you rather stay here and let them rape you and kill you afterwards?" Sherlock demanded. "Well?"

"No..." she replied. "But, there's no way to get out. They promised that they would shoot me if I tried to escape. The only way out is the door, and then, they'll take me back."

"Yes, and that's a window. Now, let's go," Sherlock said, dragging her towards the window that had a very small space that allowed only the barest glimpse of the outside. He pulled the neon red shades aside and wrenched open the window.

"Sherlock, be gentle. She's just been quite traumatized," John reminded.

But Sherlock apparently didn't hear, as he shoved Geneviève out the window and onto the dirty grass outside. She cursed when the tangle with the soil got her already brown hair even darker. When she finally got to a shower, she would definitely pay extra attention to her hair. With that thought, John gently helped her to her feet, and she realized the two of them were holding small guns in their hands. She stumbled backwards.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Of course not," John assured, and she knew that she could trust him. "We never would. Yes, that would be quite contrary to our mission, right?"

Geneviève followed them into the night, vaguely surprised that not single gunshot was fired by anyone.

~o~

"Tell me about what happened," the nice man, Detective Inspector Lestrade, he'd said his name was, said softly to her as he sat behind his desk. She sat across from him in a chair that had no real cushion on it, and it made her squirm around. On either side of her sat Sherlock and John, the latter of whom had found a spare set of clothes for her. Although they were a bit big on her petite frame, she was thankful for the warmth that these new clothes brought. John had even gotten her a cup of hot chocolate that she sipped at in between talking to D.I. Lestrade. A small chocolate mustache had formed on her upper lip that she licked off.

"Well, I work at Hôpital de l'Hotel-Dieu, in Paris...not a big job, of course, since I'm still pretty young...and I was walking out to my car after work yesterday, or today, I don't know, who knows anymore, when a bunch of the men just humped me."

Sherlock snorted slightly next to her. John reached behind her chair to slap him gently on the arm, and gave the other man a look that said, 'Shut the hell up!'

Geneviève blushed deeply, her cheeks turning as red as the loose shirt on her as she realized her mistake. "I'm French, not English, and sometimes I get my words mixed up. Oh well. Where was I?"

"You said that they hu-jumped you," D.I. Lestrade reminded, flashing his own sharp look at Sherlock before returning his kind, fatherly gaze to her.

"Yeah. They jumped me, and I tried to fight back, but I couldn't. They knocked me out with something, and then I woke up a while later in a suitcase in the cargo holder of a plane. They took me to that place that you rescued me from, made me change into those clothes, and then...you guys showed up an hour or so later. I still can't believe you wasted that much money just to save me-"

"-Fake," Sherlock interrupted, crossing one leg over the other, sounding quite bored.

"Well, fake or not, it worked. I just...I'm scared they're going to get to me again...speaking of scared, can I call my family?" she asked.

"Of course," D.I. Lestrade responded, reaching behind him to grab the cordless phone. John beat him to it and handed her his own phone. She smiled gratefully at him-God, how long had it been since she'd last smiled?-and quickly dialed her home phone number.

"This is Jean Gardinier, how may I help you?" a male voice responded in French on the first ring, almost like he'd been sitting on the device.

"Jean? It's me, Geneviève. I'm safe. I'm at a police station in London," she said rather quietly. "I'm fine."

A beat passed. "Is that really you, Genny?" the voice asked, in English this time.

"Yes, I'm fine. It's me," she grinned, sounding happy. "Is David there?"

"No, he's at home. Do you want to call him? You can call back later."

"Sure. Love you. Bye," she said, hanging up and immediately punching in the number for her boyfriend's cellphone. It took a moment, but he picked up. She had put him on speaker without thinking about it.

"Hullo?"

"David? It's me, Geneviève. I'm fine." It was quiet for a moment, except for a soft sound in the background that she couldn't define. "David?"

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I was just surprised. So you're fine? Where are you?"

She frowned slightly. He sounded like he just wasn't exactly...elated about her reappearance. "London. I'm fine. I'll be home soon."

"Oh..."

"David? Is something wrong?"

"No, of course not."

"Sorry, David, can you give me a minute?" she asked, turning off speaker and covering the source of sound up by turning it over on her pant leg. She looked angrily at Sherlock. "Is there a reason that my boyfriend talking amuses you?"

"No. Not at all. Except for your daftness on the matter," he said, looking quite pleased with himself.

"I'm not daft, you stupid git. I don't need you or your input."

"Without me, you'd still be back there," he reminded harshly.

"While I thank you for that, I still think you're an insufferable git."

"And I know you're a rich 28-year-old woman who thinks she's smarter than she really is."

"I never said I was smart. My full ride to the Sorbonne and my medical degree say that for me."

"No one ever said you were smart. Having a medical degree means nothing, just look at John here. You think so highly of yourself, you don't even realize that your boyfriend is cheating on you."

"Sherlock!" both John and Lestrade exclaimed simultaneously.

"What?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

"See, you just prove my point even more. Listen to the sounds going on in the background."

Geneviève stuck her tongue out at him childishly, but did as he suggested and picked up John's mobile, holding it to her ear, not saying a word. Now, the sounds were sharper and clearer. In the background was the sound of...a woman. Another woman. Not her. Giggling. GIGGLING.

"David, where the fuck are you, what the fuck are you doing, and who the fuck are you with?" she interrogated, her voice holding the barest hint of anger.

"It's just Caroline," he said, sounding confused. "What's wrong?"

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Nothing. Hey, I'll see you when I got back. Love you. Bye."

After she had hung up and returned the phone to John, she stared at Sherlock again. "You were wrong. It was just his sister, Caroline."

"No, it is in fact YOU who are wrong. It may be Caroline, but definitely not his sister," Sherlock said, sounding interested again. "Think about it. Why would any 'sister' be laughing like that around her brother? And judging by the tone of his voice and the way he talked to you, he is upset that you're back because he thought that you were going to die, and he had just finished having intercourse with the girl. There were the creaks of bedsprings. And at that, why would any sister of a mature age be giggling in bed with her brother? He may even have hired the men who kidnapped you to do so in order to be with this girl."

Geneviève swallowed, then looked over at Lestrade. "Can he go? Now, please?"

Lestrade laughed slightly. "He kind of goes where he wants."

"He's certainly not helping," she grumbled, sinking down into her chair and crossing her arms. She contemplated the possibility of Sherlock being right, but that was dashed away by her trust in David. David would never cheat on her. He loved her. They were going to get married soon. She was sure of it.

"You know I'm right, even if you say otherwise," Sherlock said in that same tone that he had used with her since they met a few hours ago.

Geneviève stood straight up from her chair and took off her coat, handing it to John and rubbing her shoulders to retain the heat. "Thank you, Mr. Watson and Mr. D.I. Lestrade, for your help. No thank you, Mr. Holmes, for your arrogance and lying attitude. If you don't mind, I'll be going."

"Where?" John asked.

That made her stop with her hand on the doorknob. Where, indeed? It wasn't like she knew anyone in London, and she didn't have any money with her, so there went her idea of a hotel. She shrugged and turned the knob.

"You can crash at our flat for the night, until you can get another flight back into Paris," John offered. "You can use my bed. I can sleep on the couch."

"John, she can sleep on our couch. You needn't sacrifice your comfort," Sherlock said.

OUR couch. Well, that certainly changed things for her. She certainly didn't want to spend the night in the same country as Mr. Holmes, much less the same building. But she still knew she didn't really have a choice. "Alright, Mr. Watson," she smiled, conceding.

~o~

Geneviève would have thought twice about accepting the offer if she had known how...messy, the word was...the flat of 221b Baker Street was. Papers and files were scattered everywhere, and the stench of garbage or rotting flesh (she wasn't quite sure) wafted through the air. The couch looked stable enough, but she was scared of sleeping on it, and her imagination dared to make her wonder if they would find her body if she died by being crushed by the awful mess. She kicked off her shoes at the front doormat and sat tentatively on the edge of the couch, her hands on her kneecaps.

"Honestly, you can sleep in my bed. I wouldn't mind the couch for one night," John smiled kindly at her, hanging his coat up next to Sherlock's.

"No, no, that's fine," she assured. Her stomach grumbled loudly, and she blushed, crossing her arms over her stomach.

"Oh, are you hungry?" John asked, just as Sherlock disappeared down the hallway to his bedroom, entirely bored now. "Just go into the kitchen and grab something from the refrigerator, whatever you want. Sherlock, do you want anything?"

Geneviève grinned gratefully at him and then walked into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator. She jumped back and screamed loudly when she saw the severed head that greeted her, its dead eyes closed (thankfully). John came running to the kitchen, his feet falling heavily on the wooden floor.

"What is it? What is it?" he asked her, before he saw the head, too. He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door, then closed it, then opened it again. John sighed and closed it, then took her hand and guided her to the couch. "Sit here for a minute. I'll be back. Sherlock?"

Sherlock walked out. "Hm?"

"There's a head...a severed head..."

"Just tea for me, thanks," Sherlock said.

"Sherlock, you're missing the point. Why is there a severed head in the refrigerator?"

"I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death," Sherlock responded offhandedly, turning back down the hallway and going back to his bedroom.

John groaned, running his hand through his hair and turning back to Geneviève. "I feel like I've apologized to you too many times this evening. I'm sorry. I've got some apples in the pantry, do you want some?" Geneviève nodded, and he joked, "I promise that it won't have any flesh in it this time."

Geneviève didn't respond to him, just staying quiet and curling up on the couch, wriggling her sock-covered toes as she got comfortable. Only one thing flashed through her mind.

_Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?_


End file.
